1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to methods of managing chat histories or transcripts of an online discussion and, more particularly, to a method of managing chat transcripts using tags that facilitate searching of a number of chat transcripts for a particular chat transcript.
2. Description of Background
Online discussions or chatting is gaining in popularity. Family and friends use various public and private chat protocols to communicate with one another in lieu of using a telephone. Universities and industry also use public and private chat forums to facilitate discussion and collaboration between colleagues. A group of participants such as shown at 2 in FIG. 1 conduct an electronic discussion using a plurality of computer terminals 4-10 connected to a central hub 12. Hub 12 can be an internal or local area network (LAN) or external or wide area network (WAN) hub or the Internet. In addition to connecting through internal and/or external networked hubs, and the internet, participants can access multiple instant messaging accounts from a single instant messaging client that combines multiple instant messaging portals in a single location or interface. In any event, a chat transcript or a recorded history of messages exchanged between two or more chat partners during a chat session may be saved and later recalled using a chat history functionality available in most instant messaging applications. Over time, a user may accumulate a large number of chat transcripts. Searching through the large number of transcripts for a particular transcript can be a tedious, and often fruitless, endeavor.